Filming his new television series "Believe" in New York City has kept the actor Kyle MacLachlan near his family, a welcome change from working on shows on the West Coast such as "Twin Peaks," "How I Met Your Mother" and, most recently, "Portlandia."

But there has been one drawback: New York's recent, never-ending winter.

"There have even been days when they said we have to go inside to a covered set because it's too cold for the actors to work," said Mr. MacLachlan, 55 years old. While filming a scene on Riverside Drive one freezing afternoon, "I had a paragraph of sort of complex dialogue, and after a couple takes, I said to the director, 'You may have to loop this, because my mouth isn't working so well,' " he said.

In "Believe," created by "Gravity" director
Alfonso Cuarón
and
Mark Friedman,
with
J.J. Abrams
as one of the executive producers, Mr. MacLachlan plays Skouras, a scientific magnate who will stop at nothing to track down young Bo (
Johnny Sequoyah
), a girl with telekinetic powers who is forced into hiding with her protector.

Mr. MacLachlan spoke with the Journal about the new show, which will have its premiere on NBC Monday night.

How does "Believe" compare with previous shows you've done?

On "Sex and the City" and "Desperate Housewives," I came onto a show that was already well established, had tremendous success, and so I stepped into a role that was already defined going in by what was already there.

In "Twin Peaks" and another show I did called "In Justice" and "Believe," I'm creating it from the get-go. With the character of Skouras in particular, I've found that it's really open to interpretation for me. I've got a tremendous amount of freedom to explore this guy, to ask questions about certain aspects of his personality.

J.J. has really been behind-the-scenes and hasn't been as much engaged with me in terms of the creation of the character. I'm sure if I were to go veering off in some strange direction he would jump in, but so far he seems to be pleased with what I'm doing [laughs].

Alfonso just really encouraged me to enjoy and have more fun with the character than I probably would have brought to it myself. So that was a wonderful thing to allow to happen. I can be more angry, and he was gearing me in another direction which I warmed up to and welcomed, and I have tried to maintain that sense of fun and charm with the character.

In the premiere, Skouras is a villain who also wins humanitarian prizes. His complexity is intriguing.

Obviously he seems to be incredibly successful, very well off, but we didn't really know the scientific side of things. He just looks to be a wealthy guy, and we don't really know what his business was. Turns out that he's in the science world, he's a kineticist actually, who is quite brilliant at creating and coming up with things. He's made his money in that arena and they've gone so far as to have him explain the scientific whys of Bo's ability and these other people that we'll meet as the show goes along.

You're pretty active on Twitter and Instagram. What do you enjoy about social media?

I came to Twitter late, and my wife is very active on social media and uses it as part of her company. She was the one, way back when, saying this is something I need to get involved with.

But once I started and got comfortable with it, I found it to be tremendous. I see things slightly different, and I do love to comment on things or send something into the world that is from my slightly-off personality or point of view. Twitter is ideal for that.

I find the restriction on Twitter is just terrific because it forces you to be clever, to be concise, to get your message across. Eight out of 10 tweets that I do are just a funny comment or to lighten the mood or to observe something, and then once in a while, if there's something that I feel is pertinent that I want to share, or self-promote, I'll do that as well, but I try not to make that the reason that I tweet.

Instagram is something I just started, I'm still figuring that one out. You have to stay with me on Instagram for a while.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.